Young Earth or Old Earth? Here is where to post your thoughts!

Potential NEW members?I've been getting Email notices of NEW members signing up to this blog!This can mean one of two things? Most likely ... these are just some morespammers getting ready to flood this site with ads & links to their website!

Or ... (just maybe) there are still a few people out there wanting to ask questionsor to debate some specific issues pertaining to God's methods of creation ???

So ... if you have questions? I have answers! But ... if you just want to post some more spam? I will delete you!

I just had lunch with Keith yesterday ... and we started talking about this Blogand all of the people that got it going! I hadn't checked it out in a long long time!As usual ... some trolls had come along and posted several ads ... which I justpromptly removed!

Registration to this Earthage 101 Blog is wide open to anyone and everyone !!!It would be fun to reignite this debate with some new blood getting involved?

I agree that Spiritual sparring is a good thing ... as I have noticed my ownsword getting a little rusty since I stored it away!

I will try to make an extra effort to check back more frequently to see if theYoung Earth position needs to be defended or explained any further!

It's been over 2-years since this (once lively) debate has planted its headstone!In retrospect ... this Forum may very well be one of the best resources on the webto see virtually every argument from both sides of the Creation Timeline played out?

It doesn't matter if you believe that God's fingerprints are completely covering everythingthat exists ... or if you lean more towards a Divine "perfect" cherry-bomb theory ... you will find "probably" the best arguments (soaked in sarcasm) to defend your case?

Something eternal MUST exist !!!This "Something" has a name?His name is JESUS ... !!!

It is not good to reject and dismiss cavalierly the logical arguments against your position that I have presented. It is also not good to reject truth and knowledge when trying to win a debate. God likes wisdom and understanding in His children. He doesn't like it when we align with ignorance, folly, and evil for the sake of 'strategy' in winning this heavenly and hellish war. For this reason, I cannot come over to your side even though we have common victims (non-Christians) to aid and resuscitate.

A large portion of what scientists say is true! Should I ignore all truth just to help YEs? No, this is against God's will and commandments. If you want to be on God's side then state truth, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding!

Proverbs 3:13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who obtains understanding.

Science has discovered a lot of truth about our universe, rejecting most of it makes one a fool! Has science got it all right? No, of course they’re not. There are several fundamental issues in specific areas that remain unresolved. However, there are very many discoveries that are 100% true that the typical YE rejects. Our job as Christians is to separate the chaff from the grain, not reject the chaff and the grain!

For this reason, I will answer your questions. Even though you have not fully responded to virtually any of mine, I will address the shortcomings of the atheist views that concern you.

{Bret}-'What I want to ask of you is ... where do you draw your line?'

I draw it when a scientific hypothesis without conclusive evidence from our reality is claimed as truth. There are a few of these coming from the science community as you suggest but not that many. It is these subtle lies hiding among the many truths that science touts where evil takes advantage of the unaware victim. The best strategy to me is to clearly expose them for the assumptions masquerading as truth or the outright lies they are. Darwinian evolution is one such hypothesis when Darwin insisted the modifications were unguided (random), and selected only naturally (instead of divinely).

{Bret}-'Where's the mistake that the scientists have made?'

Random chance as a substitute for God is their biggest error (the universal acid). Our universe with its constants and laws, its great variety, our earth with its diverse types of plants and animals all require a lot of information to make properly. Chance is a very poor substitute for God and would take virtually forever to create the existing plant and animal domains let alone life to begin with. God did it generation by generation in just a few 'Yom' (~4 billion years). Michael Behe already proved to many people that chance is not up to the job in the biological domain. Even atheists like Richard Dawkins speculate that life was seeded on earth by space aliens since as an atheist he can't acknowledge God and he knows chance is not able to create life. Dawkins also never explained how the space aliens came to exist so he's guilty of a circular argument.

The atheistic scientists have erred big time in promoting a multiverse spawned from eternal chaotic inflation. This is utter fantasy! All known physical laws are deterministic, so how are purely random physical laws and constants generated by it and remain fixed for the duration of the universe? New laws plus hypothetical mathematics plus imaginary inflation machines is equivalent to pure speculation with no support from our reality. This is nothing more than desperate metaphysics for those with the hopeless viewpoint that we are here by chance.

{Bret}-'You've indicated that you share my skepticism about the discovery of the Higgs Boson?'

The standard model is incomplete and doesn't include gravitation which is the theory relating mass, energy, space and time. How can a quantum field theory for the standard model regarding mass quantization that doesn't include general relativity be complete and correct? With this problem underlying particle physics it is hard for many scientists to take this new 'particle' (the Higgs Boson) very seriously especially if you are a scientist outside of the particle physics field. To everyone else, it looks like a group desperate to justify their existence reduced to using questionable or suspicious data that no one else can decipher.

{Bret}-'Could you explain how your view differs from those trying to BS the low-information public into believing that this is settled?'

String or brane theory has a shot at unifying gravity with particle field theories but scientists are many decades away, if ever, from a complete proven theory. The proof will be very difficult to discover with about 10 to the 500th power potential solutions of string / brane theory to sift through. It won't stop theorists though from claiming incomplete victories along the way. Remember these guys continually need to justify their expensive funding along the way to complete knowledge. With our omnivorous animal nature, it is almost instinctual in humans to consume, explore, rationalize, persuade, and deceive to survive.

Don't hate them too much for what they are: primitive children of God. We need to expose the flaws in their thinking to find their way back to God!John 1:5 And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

{Bret}-'Do you 100% absolutely reject the "Science?" (metaphysics) that claims that the Universe created itself out of NOTHING ???'Yes! You have to be a fool to believe in the multiverse scenario.The only alternate to God that the atheists have come up with is an eternal chaotic inflation machine that randomly pops a new universe into existence periodically with random new constants and laws. This is pure metaphysics as there will never be any hard evidence for it or the infinite number of universes spawned by it throughout eternity! They generated this hypothesis only to rationalize how this universe is so fine tuned for life and man: the Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

By the way I have stated these points and others before in my posts. You might want to go back to read more on each topic.

Lee

Last edited by InfinitLee on Fri Jul 12, 2013 4:33 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : clarifications, typos and mispelling)

Sorry for falling off the radar again!Remember ... I'm not yet retired like yourself with an abundance of spare time available at any given moment!Don't you think that it's obvious we're NEVER going concede any of our heartfelt stances on most of these issues?

Basically ... I believe that your strategy in this spiritual battle against the pervasive influence of atheism in the scientific community ... as well as the general population of university professors and their students is ...to play ball on their field, using their playbook, & abiding by their rules ... but hoping that by throwing your red-flagout on their field that they with allow you a booth review ... and that they will notice their toes touching the foul-linebefore they score the winning goal and call the game officially over! Am I right ???

Of course ... I don't believe this to be a wise or winning strategy ... but your criticism of my approach would likelyexpose several deep seeded flaws (logically) as well? So ... I'm not trying to argue which plan of attack is better here!

What I want to ask of you is ... where do you draw your line?Where's the mistake that the scientists have made?You've indicated that you share my skepticism about the discovery? of the Higgs Boson?Could you explain how your view differs from those trying to BS the low-information public into believing that this is settled?

Last question for now!Do you 100% absolutely reject the "Science?" (metaphysics) that claims that the Universe created itself out of NOTHING ???

Honestly Lee ... NONE of these questions are any kind of trap or something!I really just want to steak-out any & all foundational common ground that we both may be standing on?The world is changing very quickly ... and the enemy is boldly and aggressively rushing the stage and seeking the limelight!It's time for us to set aside our personal quests to score points ... and to join forces to win one for OUR team !!!The enemy of my enemy is my ally when it finally hits the fan!

Bret,Your lack of response to my last post reminds me of the brattish child in school that fires off a spitball then pretends he didn't do it when the teacher and his victim are looking for the culprit. It seems I'm a victim of the YE spitball and hide routine again. You said that I 'changed or ignored' other verses in Ge 1 that also use the word 'let'. These other uses of 'let' however make my case even stronger for semi-automatic drive! Are you now going to claim that gravity didn't exist or can't do the job on its own? Are you going to make offensive claims toward me then run away or hide? Or are you going to fess up and admit you were wrong in you interpretation about God saying 'let the earth' or 'let the waters' bring forth on their own the plants and animals. He certainly 'let' the water gather semi-automatically and 'let' the earth rise and appear as dry land semi-automatically under the influence of gravity which He created for that purpose and many others.

Or are you going to be sneaky and admit nothing! Defend yourself and your false claim! Don't be dishonest by making false claims then hiding from debate. God is watching you and He doesn't like deceit or dishonesty!

Your next to last question and comment 'I didn't think so' was ridiculous as we spent two years debating the age of the earth and you even accepted the view that one of God's days can be longer than 24 hours, possibly as long as a thousand years. You should also review your own statements occasionally to see how they have morphed! The length of one of the Creation DAYS has been debated for centuries by many many church leaders and saints as well as large Christian symposiums representing different views. They could reach no final conclusion one way or the other on the duration of a 'day'(yôm). Both day and day-age interpretations were determined to be valid by the symposiums. See my previous posts for the details.

I also wanted to comment on your other erroneous conclusions about the following verses:

"Plants yielding seed after their kind" "Trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind" You made two points about your interpretation of them:

1) 'This is God clearly stating that He created the plants & trees fully formed with viable seeds already within them ... '2) 'that could ONLY reproduce the SAME kind of plant or tree from which it came! NOT some generic micro-bacteria that would morph into DIFFERENT kinds of plants & trees over billions of years'

Your comment 1) is a conclusion without any support from the verse or those surrounding it. Just before these verses, God said 'let' the earth bring forth plants, as in automatic. Where does the verse say that God created the plants fully formed? It doesn't! Only the YE imagination supports your statement! The real Bible text doesn't provide any hiding spot for you! It has the Earth producing them! Over the course of a YÔM ('DAY'), earth procreates generation after generation the various kinds of plants with their seed for the next generation. The earth, per God's plan, was capable of producing all of the various kinds of plants based on a) the physical laws that God made, b) the building blocks available in dust and water, and c) the range of environments that existed during the 'YÔM' (which in this case has been determined scientifically to be billions of years). That is what the verse states; not your half baked interpretation of the verse that God made each Himself fully formed! A simple reading of the text explains how God did it using the earth. You really shouldn't intentionally misinterpret verses to insert your own imaginative concept!

In 2) you added the word 'ONLY' which is not in the verse! 'Each seed after its kind' makes a very strong case for evolutionary creationism as God uses the earth to automatically diversify the species from the first green cyanobacteria into all of the various environments that plants thrive in today. How much clearer can the ancient text be than it is as it describes God guided earth's evolution of all plant life into millions of species and untold trillions of individual plants over billions of years (YÔM)? The YE imagination strikes again providing a faulty interpretation of scripture by adding extra words and fantasies!

I love all these verses, and the fact is they add even greater support to the earth having the ability to do what God said 'let' it do on its own. When God created gravity at T=0 and used it to aggregate the earth billions of years later, He knew, unlike the YEs, that this force would cause the continental plates, which contain lighter rock than the Atlantic and Pacific plates, to rise above the surface of the water over the ocean plates. God made it happen by creating the physical laws, but He 'let' the dry land rise on its own and the waters gather on their own, because He knew they would actively move on their own because of gravity.

When it comes to baking a cake ... my preference depends on who's making it!You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of a bakery that can make a cake from scratch that will taste better than one from a box!But ... if I'm the one that has to bring the cake ... you're not going to enjoy "my" attempt at even baking from a box-mix!Even though my choice is (by far) the most costly ... everyone wins when I go to the bakery and buy a freshly made cake from scratch! Truth be told ... I'll trade you the best whole cake for a decent slice of pie!

It would seem that you prefer to have your cake & eat it as well?(Regardless of its origin)

Let us see how many words and sentences in these 5-verses that we're focusing on ... that you choose to change or ignore completely!We know your two favorite tidbits:"Let the earth sprout vegetation""The earth brought forth vegetation"

Genesis 1:9-13New American Standard Bible (NASB)

9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

The words that Lee doesn't want to see!

When God said "Let the waters be gathered into one place"...Did God gather the waters together? ... or did the waters gather themselves together?When God said "Let the dry land appear"...Did God cause the dry land to appear? ... or did the dry land remove its invisibility cloak under its own power?

"Plants yielding seed after their kind" !!!"Trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind" !!!This is God clearly stating that He created the plants & trees fully formed with viable seeds already within them ... that could ONLY reproduce the SAME kind of plant or tree from which it came! NOT some generic micro-bacteria that would morph into DIFFERENT kinds of plants & treesover billions of years !!!

Verse 13 "There was evening and there was morning, a third day" !!!

Is there even one single word in this final verse that you want to fight for a strict interpretation of ??? (I didn't think so!)

BUT ... "sprout" & "brought forth" couldn't possibly be descriptive language of what took place ... it HAS to be actionable right?

And this concludes another episode on the Cooking Channel !!!See you next time on ... "Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives"... !!!

Dear Bret,I still think we have come a long way from where you started. I remember your insisting according to His Word that God popped plants, animals, and even Adam into this world mature and fully formed by speaking them into existance early in our history. Now you are okay, at least with God popping seeds, Bandini fertilizer, and pre moistened soil into existence and saying go. Unfortunately for the YEs, the Bible doesn't back you up on this either.

Let me provide a little light through your drizzle on the parade; maybe we'll all see a rainbow soon. The Bible states 'God said let the land (or earth) produce (or sprout or grow) plants (or vegetation)'. The Bible does not state 'God created seeds to sprout plants in an instant garden'. The fact that the Bible states God saying 'let the earth or land do it precludes Him from doing it. You're reading right past the word 'let' and 'the earth' and substituting 'God produced the plant or seed in your reading. Stop switching the words around to get your preconceived interpretation of these passages and you might see the light or rainbow. It is clear from the Bible that the earth and waters had the ability to generate life on their own because God gave them the ability to spontaneously generate it. He made the physical laws and the young earth's initial conditions with very special characteristics to guarantee that life would spontaneously generate. That is why He 'let' them do it.

You probably prefer making a cake from a box mix as well or buying them from a store. According to His word, God prefers making things from scratch and to 'let' the earth automatically make His biological cake directly from His special dust. Lee

I don't want to rain on your parade ... but I feel obligated to do some drizzling!Not to split hairs here ... but I didn't say that God gave the Earth (or the land)the ability to "create" anything! What I said was ... to automatically sprout outthe Grass & Trees! Meaning ... that God could have created the land already pre-fertilized, moistened, and with grass seeds & acorns mixed in at the appropriate depths ... just waiting for His verbal command to spring into action?

I am happy to see that you are willing to at least give God credit for writing anddirecting the script! But I'm still a little fuzzy on where you stand on "who" or"what" was actually doing the physical act of creating?

Bret- "If you want to believe (B Lee V) that God created the land with the ability to automatically sprout out the Grass & Trees ... I can handle that?"

That is exactly what God did! And whatever the land and waters couldn't do on their own automatically, God made happen by stacking nature's deck to deliver biological aces! It wasn't based on chance as the Darwinists claim. I'm so happy that you finally see how God actually uses nature to create all life forms. Excellent, we are making progress!

Now if you disagree with my last remarks, please tell me how you rationalize your version whereby God performs the creation directly and leaves nature out of the loop.

Besides the 'let the waters swarm', 'let the earth sprout', and 'let the earth bring forth' verses, here are some other verses, that support God slowly creating generation by generation according to His plan throughout antiquity and divinely pruning the tree of life that He has grown. Examples are from the NET.

Examples of God creating all things and the creation not left to chance:Colossians 1:16 for all things in heaven and on earth were created in him—all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—all things were created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him. {Referring to Jesus Christ}John 1:3 3 All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.Isaiah 29:16 Your thinking is perverse! Should the potter be regarded as clay? Should the thing made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Examples of God's foreknowlege of His creation:Isaiah 46:9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 who announces the end from the beginning and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred, who says, ‘My plan will be realized, I will accomplish what I desire,Jeremiah 1:4The Lord said to me, 5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Examples of God's creation generation by generation:Isaiah 41:4 Who acts and carries out decrees? Who summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end—I am the one.Psalms 145:13 Your kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.Ecclesiastes 1:4 A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth remains the same through the ages.Lamentations 5:19 But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.

Examples of God's control over procreation:1 Corinthians 15:37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed—perhaps of wheat or something else. 38 But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another.Psalms 139:13 Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb.Job 40:15 “Look now at Behemoth, which I made as I made you; it eats grass like the ox. {God talking to Job}Job 31:15 Did not the one who made me in the womb make them?Luke 1:35 And the messenger answering said to her, `The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also the holy-begotten thing shall be called Son of God;

Examples of divine selection and God's ability to prune the tree of life:Isaiah 37:7 Look, I will take control of his mind; he will receive a report and return to his own land. I will cut him down with a sword in his own land."'" Jeremiah 17:10 I, the LORD, probe into people's minds. I examine people's hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done..Genesis 7:4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”Isaiah 46:3 “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, all you who are left from the family of Israel, you who have been carried from birth, you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. 4 Even when you are old, I will take care of you, even when you have gray hair, I will carry you. I made you and I will support you; I will carry you and rescue you.Job 38:41 Who prepares prey for the raven, when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?Isaiah 40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant. 24 Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw.Ge 20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children. 18 For the Lord had caused infertility to strike every woman in the household of Abimelech because he took Sarah, Abraham’s wife.Mt 10:29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. 31 So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Last edited by InfinitLee on Sat Mar 16, 2013 2:23 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : typo)

Genesis 1:21 (NASB)God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Hmmm ... looks like God created everything that swims & Flies ???And He saw it was GOOD !!! ... Not in a long slow drawn-out process of death & failure ... and re-tinkering to get a finished product !!!

Genesis 6:7 (NASB)The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

Not only is He the Creator ... but He's the blotter-outer too! (but I know that you don't believe in the Flood as well?)Hmmm ... looks like God created Man and everything else that lives on the land too ???

If you want to believe (B Lee V) that God created the land with the ability to automatically sprout out the Grass & Trees ... I can handle that?And you're right about there being no mention of God snapping His fingers or making firecracker noises when these events took place!

Dear Bret, I wish I had a nickel for all of the words I have posted that you didn't read or understand. I would be so wealthy that I would have to spend all my time giving it away to avoid taxes. I've explained this also so many times that I am even getting bored writing it. But you seem to have a digital mind, one way or only one other, and those are the only possibilities. The choice isn't between your way or the highway, but several paths of creation not including Darwinism. Slow popping (or drawling), your method in less than a 24 hour day is your way. Evolutionary creation is my way because that's what God actually describes in the Bible. He guided the evolutionary process generation by generation by divine modification of genetic code and Divine selection. Try reading my posts sometime instead of just blathering nonsense! God said He was involved in the creation so I believe Him.

Darwinism was another way which didn't involve God and one that relied on unguided procreation and natural selection. Deistic evolution is another way with Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and BioLogos that is popular, but not compatible with scripture because it is largely unguided. The physical laws, and constants guided the evolutionary process but chance and contingency played a major part in the types of animals and plants surviving until today. There are several other versions as well for God to get involved in the process but I will let you read past posts to learn about these. May God open your eyes and guide your thoughts so that you can see that there are more than two options for God to create all life forms.

You should know the various options already, so I really think this was another red herring to avoid answering the challenge before you: please explain how you derive the interpretation that God performed all the creation by slowly speaking when He clearly lets the earth and waters do the job using natural processes that He created.Lee

Last edited by InfinitLee on Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:47 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : Grammar, clarity)

Just when I thought that you couldn't sink any lower ...you somehow manage to drain even more water out of the pool ... !!!

So if I heard you correctly? ... And I'm pretty sure that I did?YOU are saying that God is NOT the Creator after all? (Be afraid! ... Be VERY afraid !!!)

Are you saying that God was only pulling a Moses on us ... and just reporting to us what was happening as He watched ??? Did God create ANYTHING in Lee's universe? ... Or was He just like Jimmy Olson at the scene reporting to us what He witnessed?

I had you pegged over two years ago ... when I first called you a Deist ... and I'm still 100% correct in my analysis !!!

Question? ... If God didn't actually do any of the heavy lifting ... then why was He all tuckered-out after just watchingthe equivalent of a six-part mini series on the Science Channel ???

Could YOUR god be any more lazy & disinterested with everything?Possessing attributes such as Omnipatience & Omniapathy ???

Hi Bret,I am forced to keep reinterating because I never seem to get an honest thoughtful reply. I always get regurgitated BALONEY hurled at me. So I keep trying to address your fallacious statements with factual information that shows your errors and then you just keep missing the point and hurl away again. This time I used the Hebrew definitions of the words that God spoke. I don't know how many other ways I can write down the logical arguments against your claim: 'God spoke everything into existence'. I will keep trying though until your blindness is gone. God did speak, no question about that, but when He spoke, he made a statement of fact; natural entities (waters and earth) brought the animals into existence. He didn't, He 'let' nature do it for Him. This is the point you miss over and over. It is like you keep reading only the first three words of the statement: 'And God said'. Then you ignore His statement of fact after it.

Use any existing translation you want, they each say something like, 'let the waters swarm' (ASV), 'let the waters teem' (YLT), 'let the land produce' (NET), 'let the earth sprout' (ESV), 'let the earth bring forth' (ASV), etc. None of them say, 'God spoke the plants and animals into existence. Would you stop saying 'The Bible says that God spoke things into existence!'. It is a flat out misrepresentation of what the Bible actually states. It is BALONEY! Talk about intellectual dishonesty! The YEs seem to have cornered the market in its use! I have asked this many times and received nothing serious in reply. How can you read God's Word and get this strange interpretation from it? None of the various versions indicate anything other than the earth, land, or waters bringing plants and animals into existence. None of them indicate that God brought them into existence. All of them indicate, by God's own words, that He 'let' these natural creations of His bring forth or produce the plants and animals. Of course you can't justify your claim and that is why you avoid trying!

If I had a nickel for every word that you've typed on this BlogI could retire alongside you ... and have more free time to refutethe SAME old tired Straw-Man arguments that you keep "creating" overand over and over again and again and again !!!

As far as I know ... no Young Earth Creationist (including myself)wrote any of the translations of the Holy Scriptures ???Linguistic Specialists and Historians are the ones that take onthese endeavors! Not Scientists, Physicists, or Mathematicians!Even though you can find some Scholars that will agree that certainwords in Greek & Hebrew can be translated to mean different things ...NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE HUNDREDS OF TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLEHAVE EVER PROMOTED WHAT YOU ARE SAYING THAT THEY "SHOULD" SAY !!!

Why? ... WHY ???Why would these EXPERTS of translation (without a scientific axe to grind)consistently keep translating God's Word to read to my narrative?There IS obviously a market out there for an Old Earth Translation of the Bible ... so it MUST be intellectual honesty that keeps onefrom actually ever being written!

Darwinian Gradualism is the most vacuous Scientific Theory to stillexist in this enlightened era of Scientific advancement !!!Punctuated Equilibrium at least was an attempt to "create" a Theorythat better fits the actual Scientific data ... but started to soundtoo much like "popping"... and needed a God to supply the combustion!

Just for the record AGAIN !!!I never said that Creation had to be "instantaneous" or that the actof creating things involves a popping sound?

The Bible says that God spoke things into existence!He would start speaking in the "morning"... and then finished speakingin the "evening" of each day!I'm not sure if God speaks with a slow southern drawl ... or if He spokemore like that guy in the old Fed Ex commercials?But I'm guessing that the speed of creation falls somewhere in between?And the only day that may have included some popping sounds would haveto be the 6th day ... because it was the first time that there was anyoneelse around to pull God's finger?

Bret et al,This is the easiest time I've had in keeping a New Year's resolution thanks to the unusual silence from the YEs. Nothing, not one irrational claim to deconstruct or refute in a whole month! Wow! Bret, are you sure you're really back?

We've been waiting for two years for a rational set of Biblical based arguments to justify the YE creation story of instantaneous popping of plants and animals into existence by God using an alternate set of physical laws. So far your side has only provided two arguments to justify their position:1) A simple straightforward literal reading of Genesis 1 is claimed to be sufficient proof of God's instantaneous creation of all plants and animal kinds.2) Genesis 2:7 Where YEs interpret this verse to mean that God formed man directly from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into him in a very short time period much less than a 24 hour day. Both arguments are flawed in their reasoning as summarized below and more extensively in prior posts:

1) A straightforward reading of Genesis 1, however, indicates God guided evolution by letting nature through the earth sprout plants (erets dasha deshe), the ocean breed animals (mayim sharats sherets) and the earth bring forth breathing animals (erets yatsa chay nephesh). The Hebrew terms used in each indicate natural procreative processes based on other uses of these terms throughout the Bible. They do not imply miraculous instantaneous creation. On 'DAY' six they, the Trinity, make man with a spiritual capability like themselves. There is no indication in Genesis 1 that the process is changed or unnatural in how God makes living beings, only that their characteristics are different: the Trinity made man like themselves (to include a spiritual attribute). God spoke as to how each kind was made by earth and water, but didn't say that He made any of them instantaneously by popping them into existence.

Humans have unique characteristics among all plants and animals; we are made by the Trinity to include some attributes 'like' theirs. Careful study shows that unlike all other animals, we are capable of reasoning with, the understanding of, and the communication of abstract complex concepts. We're the only animal capable of acquiring knowledge and wisdom related to performing acts of good and evil! In a simple straight forward way, Genesis 1 tells us that God has made mankind like Him through and using nature.

Genesis 1 does not say that God created each species instantaneously fully formed and mature. To claim this is nothing more than bad exegesis or worse: foolishness involving intentional deception.

2) The second claim is based on insistence of a YE biased literal interpretation of the phrase 'formed the man from the soil' and 'breathed through his nostrils the breath of life' to mean miraculous instantaneous creation. The YE viewpoint does not permit a partially literal and somewhat symbolic interpretation which permits a much longer period of formation. However, creation can occur over a great length of time if God guided evolution is considered as His process for making plants and animals.

The Genesis 2 account starts by concluding the Genesis 1 narrative of an overall summary of God's Creation. Then it switches gears in a more symbolic sense to elaborate on the creation of mankind and its fall from grace because of sin and its consequence of separation from Him.

Why do we know that Genesis 2 contains symbology? It is because the account includes language about the 'tree of life' and the consequences of eating fruit called 'the knowledge of good and evil'. Most Biblical scholars will tell you that the eating of the fruit from the 'knowledge of good and evil' tree by Adam and Eve is symbolic of committing sin (any sin) and not physically eating a new fruit called 'the knowledge of good and evil' as if it could be bought in markets. Fruit is used extensively throughout the Bible to symbolize the results of our good or bad activities. Similarly, we know there is symbolism because of the non-existent deceptive talking serpent in the story which was intended to symbolize Satan tricking Eve into partaking of sin. Also, there were angels with whirling flaming swords stationed at the perimeter of Eden to prevent the sinful couple from re-entering. This colorful description makes the symbolic point that Adam and Eve were intentionally separated from God and outside His protection. There is no reason to believe that these examples were the only allegory in the biblical account.

The fact that mankind as well as all plants are formed from soil or dust as stated in Genesis 2:7 supports all creation methods including God guided evolution. Even the scientific accounts claim this as well; stardust as a matter of fact. Science has proven that all matter, including that used in plants and animals, contains the same set of atoms and molecules. The only difference in any of earth's biological creatures is the organization of its matter (the informational content of each individual organism). All are made of the same elements occurring in the periodic table with all of the biologically useful elements contained in dust or soil. So Ge 2:7 makes a literally factual statement about man (as well as all living creatures).

However, next, it is rather clear there is some symbolism related to the breath of life which God breathed through Adam's nostrils. Since God is a spiritual being not made of matter or utilizing our world's physiological processes, the breath of life means something quite different and more than breathing air through Adam's nostrils. This phrase is more symbolic than literally giving Adam his first breath of air. This verse is symbolically inferring that God gave Adam spiritual life as the Trinity was making Adam like themselves according to Genesis 1:26-27. This 'life' was special and distinct from physiological life given to plants and animals that preceded Adam. If one reads this verse in a pure literal sense, they miss a key point it is making symbolically.

Another consideration is that the time to form man from soil or dust is not identified in Genesis 2. YEs insist that 'DAY' six must be only 24 hours to support their instantaneous creation hypothesis. However, for the YEs to claim this day was only 24 hours runs counter to several statements in Genesis 2. It takes thousands of years for rivers to slowly form by erosion of rock and soil from melting snow and flowing water, yet Eden is created at the junction of several rivers. Another obvious one is the statement that God caused the trees to grow in the Garden to maturity and produce fruit. This does not occur naturally in less than 24 hours. This normally takes many years if God 'caused them to grow' as the Bible states they did. It also requires time to find and name all of the animals. It also takes time to develop and learn a language to communicate between humans or other species; not to mention the time it takes for a talking serpent if at all possible (or Satan) to learn it. The events described within Genesis 2 couldn't possibly have occurred in a 24 hour day. Consequently, 'DAY' six as well as the preceding 'DAYS' must be much longer and therefore allow other methods of forming and giving life to man as well as other plants and animals than instantaneous popping.

Therefore, the YE's insistence that instantaneous popping of species is the method that God must have used based on time limitation of one 24 hour day is not rationale based on review of all Biblical verses in Genesis 1 and 2. It is very sad to see that the majority of Christians still believe in this incorrect and distorted interpretation of Creation since it has no basis. Christian credibility is constantly hammered by the secular world because of belief in this unsubstantiated and purely fictional YE view. YEs should declare their error in exegesis before more souls are lost and since this propaganda is untrue.

If you have more Biblical support for your claim than those above, let's see it? Otherwise, the debate is surely over and your side has lost based on the evidence you've provided!

Lee

Last edited by InfinitLee on Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:38 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : grammar and spelling corrections)

To All YEs ,Have your ever considered that the reason that John Q Public and educators lose their trust in the Bible and becomes antagonistic to Christians is because of your insistence that creation occurred in six 24 hour days (or six millenia according to some of your brethren). This faulty concept has clearly been disproven by rock solid scientific investigation! You have now locked yourself into a losing position because of this faulty interpretation of a few beginning verses of the Bible. You fail to see and recognize the significant amount of symbolism in the Bible; instead you take everything literally from translated English versions. Other verses and the original Hebrew version contradict your interpretation as I have shown throughout this debate. You need to reset your position and accept the old earth version (the one God and the Genesis author intended in the original Hebrew writings).

You are helping to bring about the end as more and more people distrust the Bible because of your propaganda which many of us know is not true! Wake up and stop helping Satan fight his battle against God!

I am eagerly looking forward to destroying each of your YE arguments that you present in the year ahead! How about starting with some responses to my counter arguments that I have already made? Happy New Year!

Another year is coming to an end ... and in many ways ... the Mayans were right?Everything has lined up so quickly to fulfill the prophecies of Daniel & Revelationsthat the Tribulation period could literally start almost any day now?Which brings me to my MAIN concern about why this AOTE (Age of the Earth) debateis such a prevalent and important issue as we head to the finish line!

I don't worry about the mild increase in the acceptance of Atheistic philosophy!The Antichrist will proclaim himself as the creator deity at the mid-point of the tribulation!But ... he needs the gullible masses to lose confidence in the clear (straight-up) reading ofthe Bible as the inerrant Word of God!The Bible clearly warns us of this coming Antichrist ... and of his false proclamation to come!The only way that Satan has any chance of fooling the masses (even if it is only for a season)is if he can create doubts about the credibility of God's Word ... the way it is written?

So you see ... I really couldn't care less about the actual numeric value attached to the days of creation!But ... when God uses terms like the "Morning" & the "Evening" when defining each "Day"... and then I amsupposed to believe that the Greatest (more accurately "The PERFECT")... communicator is describing sixperiods of creation that vary in length from millions to billions of years ... and also overlap each otherto varying degrees and lengths as well ... is more than just crazy! It is dangerous !!!

The most painful fact about this is knowing that my side is destined to lose!Not because I am wrong ... but because God has told us about this bit of final history in advance!

The fact that Lee & I can fully agree on issue #5 is truly a Festivus miracle worth noting & celebrating!We may enjoy juggling some flaming torches over an ocean of holy gasoline ...but the fact that we understand (without equivocation) that Jesus is the only One supplying the eternal flame retardant suits ... FREE for the asking ... is the greatest Christmas gift of all ... !!!

Please add Stu's wife Gail to your prayer list ... as she is recovering from cancer surgery and will beginto undergo several months of Chemo Therapy! These are two of the nicest people that I have ever met!

Hopefully the red text is an indication of your holiday spirit and not hostility. It is so nice to finally see an answer to Dave's questions from the YE side. Unfortunately the answers leave a lot to be desired in that they do not address the issues in most cases. In others, they are simply incorrect statements. It is very hard to find common ground between us when statements by the YEs simply ignore certain words or some verses of the Bible. The rigid literal interpretation of all verses without the intended inclusion of extensive symbology in scripture compounds the difficulty as well. I've identified the problems with your statements for each of the questions below.

Q1) It seems strange that for someone that believes that 'God is timeless', that same person tries to force the rest of us to believe that God operates within a strict human 24 hour day because a subset of humans (the YEs) interpretation of the Bible that Hebrew 'Yom' can only mean 24 hours. Also when Peter said 'as' or 'like' a thousand years, the YEs say it must mean exactly 1000 years. How do you know that Peter didn't mean an extensive period of time much longer than a thousand years in a symbolic sense? Peter spoke in Aramaic and 1 Peter was written in Greek over a hundred years later. The word million didn't come into use until the 14th century, and the word billion didn't come into use until the 1800s. The English word 'day' didn't come into use until medieval times centuries after Peter spoke his words. Check your word history! If any LIES have been made, it is from the hands and mouths of the YEs passing on Satan's deception roughly six centuries ago that the Hebrew 'Yom' must mean a single human 24 hour day in the original English Bible translation of Genesis.

Q2) Your response to Dave's point was totally missed on question 2. I've addressed the issues with the YEs misunderstanding of order in prior posts: Middle Creation 'Week', and The Fifth Creation Day years ago back in Oct 3 2009 and Nov 15 of 2009 .

Plant creation lasted much longer than that for animals and started first, consequently the order is correct in putting it before animal life creation. Early plants (Hebrew deshe, eseb, and zera) provided an oxygen atmosphere making it possible for animal life. You are right that early animal life in the Cambrian Explosion came before fruit trees (Hebrew ets) existed by over a hundred million years, however, the fruit trees descended from earlier plant types listed prior in the verse and the author and God chose to put all kinds into the one verse as they are long descendent sequence. In any case, even if the order is different or misplaced, it's not justification that plants and animals had to be instantaneously created from dust. It's not the order, it is the methodology in question here. The verses indicate that the earth and or the waters bring forth the plants in the animals. God said 'let' the earth or waters bring forth the plants and animals and they did! According to the verses, God didn't bring them forth or pop them into existence, He designed Nature to 'LET' the earth and waters do it for Him! This is evolution under God's guidance. Please read these verses carefully; you have misinterpreted them or are blinded to God's Holy Word. Satan be gone, let the YEs see, read, and understand!

Q3) This is another example where the YEs have chosen to ignore a verse in GE 1 that is contrary to their ideology: GE 1:2 and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The point of reference has been ignored, to further other erroneous concepts the YEs perpetuate. The Spirit of God is clearly over the water surface on the early planet earth.

Q4) We both agree that God could have molded and brought plants and animals to life from clay, but that is not what He said He did in GE 1! Again, He 'let' the earth and waters do the work for Him and they 'brought' the plants and animals 'forth' by natural reproduction generation after generation, species by species. My God is more than a magician, He cleverly designed Nature to assist Him in the Creation while providing Him complete authority over all things produced. Forcing this God designed natural creation machine to fill the world with all plants and animals in six 24 hour days is a fiction from Satan and perpetuated by the YEs.

Q5) Amazing, we agree on this point!

Q6) But, the YEs are the ones guilty of the misrepresentation of God's Word relating to creation or not being able to clearly read and understand the Bible at least. You should be warning other YEs and the ICR instead of the rest of us.

Q7) An old earth has nothing to do with the slippery slope humanity is on. The slope is caused by non-belief in the one true God and our Savior, people believing in BALONEY(etc.), and people putting themselves above others. The ICR's and YEs time and resources would be much better invested in battling the above important issues rather than fighting the ancient age of the earth, and promoting non-biblical fictional instantaneous animal and plant popping!

Q1) Does the Bible expressly say it is less than 10,000 years old?Answer- No! With verses like 2 Peter 3:8 "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day", there is no way to demand that the creation DAYS/EPOCHS in Genesis 1 are only 24 hours when God was creating the universe, earth and all of its plants and creatures. Quite the contrary, Peter tells us that their is no correlation between God's DAYS and human days.REAL ANSWER!2 Peter 3:8 is CLEARLY telling us that God is NOT subject to His creation of TIME !!!God does not own a pocket watch ... nor a calendar ... as God is TIMELESS ... !!!But let me put my brain in my back pocket for a minute so I can humor you!Let's pretend that God means what He's saying here about a "Day" being a "Thousand" years!7 days X 1000 years = 7000 years + 6000 years of recorded history = 13,000 years !!!I can live with that! CAN YOU ???Here! ... let me offer you up some more ZERO's (0's) ...130,000 years, 1,300,000 years, 13,000,000 years, 130,000,000 years, & even 1,300,000,000 years!Still is NOT enough time to fulfill the LIE that falsely inflates Darwin's MYTH ... !!!Oddly enough ... you need to add SIX (6) ZEROS to match the myth!Biblically ... the number SIX (6) is the number that represents fallen (incomplete) man!Isn't it ironic that it takes (6) ZEROS added to God's Truth to fulfill man's incomplete theory!When you trilogize this fallen number ... you get the god that is selling this LIE ... !!!

Q2) Does it exclude the possibility of God-guided evolution?Answer- No! Quite the contrary, the wording in Genesis 1 describes God guided evolution and provides no evidence for popping or superpopping of all plants and animals into existence instantaneously. Other verses give strong evidence for God intervening in the natural evolutionary process and growing each individual plant or animal from its 'seed'. These Bible verses are pointed out in my previous posts too numerous to list here.REAL ANSWER!Let's ignore the exact time-frame for a moment and focus in on the "Order" of Creation vs. the "order" of Evolution!The Bible says that TREES bearing FRUIT after their own kind existed BEFORE the Fish did ... and Chucky D. says NO ... !!!The Bible says that BIRDS (fowl) existed before the land animals did ... and Dickey D. says NO ... !!!I won't even bring up the Sun, Moon, & the Stars issue!

Q3) Does it exclude the possibility that Moses could have been viewing the creation event from the Earth's surface and reported what he saw (like most all the other prophets given prophecy)?Answer- No! The words in the Bible (Ge 1:2) accurately describe the liquid water upper surface (the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters) therefore giving us the reference point for what follows in the Ge 1 description of evolutionary events.REAL ANSWER!The teaching that Moses was shown a time-lapse Imax movie of the Creation Event is a concept taken right out of"The Pearl of Great Price"Wait! ... you can't find that book in your Bible?You might need to consult with the Mormon Church on that one?Either God was a really lousy film maker? ... or Moses just plan sucked at taking notes?

Q4) Does the Bible expressly say that God created things from nothing when it says something was created in Chapter one? (warning: requires a review of the original Hebrew words used in Gen 1)Answer- No! Quite the contrary, the words describe the earth and waters bringing forth plants and animals from their seed. This process requires time to grow each one to maturity from its seed. Studying the Hebrew further confirms this fact.REAL ANSWERS!In a RARE moment of unity ...I think we would ALL agree that matter is NOT eternal ... and therefore needed to be created!After God created Matter, Time, & Space OUT OF NOTHING! ... I too believe that He dipped into this newly formed clay to mold whatever He wished ...but my God can mold, fire, and animate his creations in less than a day!

Q5)Do we as Christians save more people by telling them they have to believe the Earth is under 10,000 years old?Answer- No! Quite the contrary, the secular world uses this point to mock Christians and convince others to not take Christianity or Creationism seriously.REAL ANSWER!>>> NO CHRISTIAN HAS EVER SAVED ANYONE PERIOD !!! <<<The salvation is ours for the taking ... thanks to our Lord Jesus !!!We are drawn to accept Jesus by the Power of the Holy Spirit !!!No one can be tricked into the club ... or tricked out!Trying to make God's Word conform with man's myths ...is so "Roman Catholic Church" like ... don't you think?

Q6) And to reference Revelation 22:18, do we run the risk of adding to God's Word by forcing this interpretation.Answer- Absolutely, Yes! This interpretation by the YEs goes against the words of prophet's and God's own statements on creation. Forcing people to accept a 24 hour God's DAY and the popping concept are clearly adding concepts that were never stated nor intended by the original authors of the Bible.REAL ANSWER!Are you freaking kidding me with this one?Young Earthers are basically just Fundamentalists!We fight AGAINST those of you that are hellbent on CHANGING, Distorting, & adding to the CLEARstraight-up reading of God's Word ... !!!Are you saying that it is wrong for me to point out God's WARNING about those who will choose to deceive?

Q7) "I am not sure how old the Earth is, but if you could believe the Earth is 4.5 to 5 Billion years old, would you give your life to Jesus Christ today and trust Him as your Lord and Savior?"Answer- How old the earth is has no bearing on whether they give their life to Jesus Christ. Trust in Christianity is affected though when some groups, like the YEs, try to force the non-believers into accepting the world is less that 10,000 years old.REAL ANSWER!Changing the age of the Earth carries way more baggage with it than just adding SIX (0's) to it!It's THE ultimate slippery slope that will open the door for the antichrist to deceive the world that he is god ... !!!This is way more than a jot and tittle!

Bret,We are so very happy that you will be joining us for Christmas Festivus in WhoVille! Cindy Lu will be so excited. Max is welcome to join us too. Don't bring presents, just your presence is desired. We missed you, are you okay? I was worried that you OD'ed on propaganda or drank the Kool-Aid at a YE conference and we would never hear from you again. I am very happy to see you are alive and back to enjoy Christmas with us. Your title seems more like one of the lines from Poltergeist though. I hope your dialogue won't mirror demonic possession instead of the Christmas angel.

As far as my assumptions go, they aren't. They are right from the Bible and the science is validated from decades of research. I would be most appreciative and grateful if you could find even just one flaw in any of my writings on the site. But in almost three years all I've seen is balderdash and baseless attacks from the YEs and a complete lack of Biblical support for their views.

So before you do something that you regret and go off hiding again, Mr. Grinch, it would be very nice to see a Biblical justification with good rationale from you. Since you believe popping large numbers of plants and animals from dust instanteously is the way God created in spite of all the verses to the contrary in Ge 1 and other chapters of the Bible which I have identified for you in my posts, it is high time to provide some, any, and all evidence from God's Holy Word. Give me anything you got! So far you got nuttin! I've only seen empty promises to deliver, time and time again. What will it be this time Mr. Grinch?

Now I think I will go and watch 'Dr Seuss How The Grinch Stole Christmas' (the Jim Carrey version). I always enjoy watching it. Be thinking of you!

Lee

Last edited by InfinitLee on Sun Dec 16, 2012 10:16 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : grammar)

The Grinch is back to the Blog (at least periodically) to steal the "Happy" out of your Holidays ...and to put THE "Christ" back into Christmas! (The Biblical one ... not the secular pseudo science one!)

But ... before I expose ALL of your flawed assumptions ... can you please fix your latest link to the Higgs article?Maybe we have some common ground here? Might actually be nice if we could find "something" that we could agree upon?